The Fries Center for Global Studies is proud to announce that six Wesleyan students have been selected as Finalists, with one more student being selected as an alternate, for the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the summer of 2024. This year’s cohort is made up by Eli Siegel-Bernstein ’25 and Mohammad Hasib ’24, who were selected for the Advanced and Intermediate Arabic programs, respectively; Henry Leighton ’25, who has been awarded in the Advanced Chinese program after participating in the CLS Spark Online language program the previous year; Kat Basilio ’27, who will be learning Indonesian; Lyla Normand ’25, who will be participating in the Advanced Japanese program; Sophie Raiskin-Wood ’25, who is participating in the Intermediate Portuguese program; and Aniya Akhtar ’24, who will be studying in the Advanced Urdu program.

The CLS is an opportunity for university students from the United States to interact with new languages and cultures to promote intercultural and global engagement, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Every summer, students take part in an immersive eight-to-ten week program at intensive CLS study abroad institutes. Students have the option to apply to learn and practice one of thirteen different languages that are vital to U.S. political interests. Of these thirteen, six are represented in Wesleyan’s 2024 CLS cohort. Congratulations to our 2024 CLS Finalists!